Dubai’s $330 Billion of Deferred Building Imposes Investor Fees

* username: rupertbu

Silvia Turrin paid two-thirds of the $520,000 purchase price of her Dubai apartment, only to learn that it won’t be finished until 2012, two years late. When she stopped payments to Emaar Properties PJSC, the developer hit her with late fees.

“We feel hopeless and we’re running out of options,” said Turrin, one of about 400 buyers in two nonexistent towers called 29 Boulevard. “It’s almost like we don’t have any rights.”

Developers in Dubai are demanding that buyers like Turrin keep paying for homes that in some cases haven’t even been started. Builders in the emirate have delayed or canceled projects worth about $331 billion, Dubai-based market researcher Proleads estimates. The best performing real estate market in the world collapsed in 2008 after credit dried up, sparking defaults and forcing writedowns of land and property values.